Brady Rein wins Pro-debut at the Riverside Convention Center

A jealous eye describes Riverside and its Convention Center

Whenever you’re traveling a great distance, it’s crazy if you don’t take full advantage of the experience. Riverside, CA, depending on your time of travel, is an hour and 45 minutes to well over a two hour drive from San Diego. It’s the home of the historic Mission Inn, the Beaux-Arts style Riverside County Courthouse and the Riverside Fox Theatre, where the first showing of the 1939 film Gone with the Wind took place.

Three notable hills are in Riverside’s scenic landscape: Box Springs Mountain, Evans Hill and Tecolote Hill; all of which have preserved open spaces. South of Riverside is Lake Mathews. There’s also the well-known landmark/foothill, Mount Rubidoux, which is next to the Santa Ana River.

Riverside is home to the one surviving Parent Navel Orange Tree, from which all American West Coast navel orange trees descended. In 1873, the Brazilian navel orange was introduced to North America by the first settlers to Riverside.

The trees thrived in the Southern California climate and the navel orange industry grew rapidly. Growers purchased bud wood and then grafted the cuttings to root stock. Within a few years, the successful cultivation led to a California Gold Rush of a different kind: the establishment of the citrus industry. By 1882, there were more than half a million citrus trees in state, almost half of which were in Riverside. By 1895, with the development of refrigerated railroad cars and innovative irrigation systems, Riverside had established itself as the wealthiest city, per capita, in the U. S.

Among Riverside’s favorite sons and daughters: heavyweight contender Chris Arreola; ball players, Dusty Baker, Barry and Bobby Bonds, Eric Show, Troy Percival, Adam Kennedy; poker players, Allen Cunningham and Phil Ivy; football players, RB Sammy Knight, TE Bubba Franks; Race Car driver, Dan Gurney; Republican Representative Duncan Hunter; radio Talk Show host, Don Imus; basketball players Reggie and Cheryl Miller; comedians Ahmed Ahmed and Gabriel Iglesias; and Oscar-nominated actor (The Crying Game) Jaye Davidson. That’s quite a who’s who list for the 12th largest city in California.

Begrudgingly, I will now describe the Riverside Convention Center, where Saturday’s Boxing/MMA show took place. Without a doubt, the site is one of the most ideal for this type of event. Forget the perfect setup downstairs, with the cameras, lighting, ring placement and seats, forget the well-organized security and ticketing, upstairs is what separates this venue from its competitors.

On the second floor, they had all the accoutrements a fighter could wish for and strategically placed; from the elegant chilled water dispensers to the spacious dressing rooms where the fighters have an ability to look down at the ring and arriving patrons. With such a show of respect for the performers, you know they’re going to give 110% in the ring.

And now for the results of Pandemonium VI presented by MEZ Sports with its promoter Craig Zimmerman.  

In the MMA portion:

Bout#1

In Bout #1, Fernando Bernstein received the unpopular decision win over Nikko Cataline after their 3 – three minute rounds in the 150 pound division. This hotly contested match had many back and forth momentum swings and since Cataline had the most supporters in-house, Bernstein’s narrow victory was soundly booed.

In Bout #2, Ron Scolesdang of Team Oyama of Irvine, CA won an unanimous decision victory over fellow 135 pounder, Brandon “Baby Assassin” Moreno from Tijuana, B. C., Mexico. All three scorecards had the same 29-28 scores.

The judges were most likely impressed by the striking of Scolesdang who appeared to have an advantage in both quickness and the power behind his punches. While Moreno kept going after the takedown, Scolesdang preferred to stand upright and land the multiple left hooks and straight lefts. As a result, Moreno’s face began to swell.     

Bout #3, which was to be the evening’s Main Event, 5 – five minute rounds between Carla Esparza and Angel Magana for the female Flyweight MMA title, had to be cancelled. Ring announcer Chris Gregory and the star attraction Carla Esparza came to the center of the ring to make the announcement that Magana, Esparza’s opponent that night, had been involved in a serious auto accident and was in the hospital suffering from an injury to her back.    

Esparza (6-2) was coming off a decision victory over established fighter Felice Herrig, while Magana (10-4) was coming off two armbar victories in 2011.

Bout#4

Justin Santistevan of Corona, CA got the submission victory over Kenny Hutchinson of Team Diamond in the 132 pound division. After getting kicked twice in the family jewels, both the judge and the crowd, not to mention the victim, Santistevan, were getting pretty upset with Hutchinson’s tactics.

Finally, someone in the crowd yelled, “Heh! That’s not fair. Let him do the same.”

Most likely for self preservation, Santistevan got Hutchinson down on the mat and soon secured the choke hold for a submission.

Bout #5

In what appeared to be a rather even 150 pound MMA bout, Steve Magadeno began to land some hard shots to Richard Schiller’s chin. Just before the horn sounded to end round #2, one of these shots landed flush and down went Schiller for the count.

Bout #6

In round #2, Saad Awad, 160 pounds, of Milennia MMA got the submission victory over Andy Morales of Laguna Hills after getting Morales in a rear naked choke hold.

Awad was the gentleman on the Strikeforce MMA card: Diaz vs. Daley back on Saturday, April 9, 2011 at the Valley View Casino Center in San Diego, CA that lost to Joe Duarte (7-2) from The Arena MMA, submission by armbar at 2:45 of round 2.

At the conclusion of the MMA bouts and a brief intermission, recording artist Brittany Peltier came center stage to sing our National Anthem. Though short in stature, she did an amazing rendition.

At this point, the Mixed Martial Artists turned the show over to the Boxers.

Bout #7

In a scheduled four round boxing match, Brady Rein of Riverside, CA made his pro-debut against Victor Manuel Medina (1-2-0). At first Medina stood almost center ring, cool as a cucumber, and let Rein do all the roadwork. As Rein circled his opponent, you can imagine what was going through Medina’s head, ‘This youngster is using up all his nervous energy and we have four long rounds to go. Let him!’

Then, came the unexpected flash knockdown and Rein quickly got back on his feet. It didn’t take long before Rein got his payback and Medina was getting the same eight count.

Rein had given Medina his notice, I will not be defeated. From that point on the exchanges became more heated and it appeared of the two, Rein was delivering the sharper blows.

As the bell sounded to end round #2, Medina headed to his corner with the referee in tow. Soon the California Commission representative, the referee and the fight doctor were discussing a cut over the right eye. From this discussion, it was determined to call a halt to the bout.

The Rein supporters, which included Brady’s mom, were ecstatic. In the record books this close battle will go down as a technical knockout.

Thoughts on the match: Rein was getting sharper and sharper as the bout continued. Even though the punches to the head got him the victory, he does need to go to the body more and those early jitters should vanish as he gets more accustomed to fighting professionally.

Bout #8 featured a junior lightweight match between Roberto Rios Quinonez (3-0-0, 2 KOs) from Buena Park, CA by way of Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico going up against Alejandro Artiaga (3-3-0, 1 KO) from Bakersfield, CA. in a four rounder.

This one didn’t last long as Quinonez came at Artiaga as if he was a tree that needed pruning. A counter left hook to the body floored Artiaga early in round one. He beat the count but was met with a three-punch combination that sent Artiaga down for the count at just 59 seconds of the first round to register the knockout victory.

In Bout #9, light middleweights Marquise Bruce (0-1-1) of Los Angeles went up against David Barragan (1-0-0, 1 KO) of House of Boxing, San Diego, in a four rounder.

With complete command of his punches, Barragan looked awesome in both Round one and two. He kind of reminds of Victor Ortiz, the way he used his uppercuts, left hooks to the body and straight shots to the head.

Then in Round #3, he slowed down. He slowed down just enough to give Bruce some confidence and put the round in question.

At the close of round three, Bruce’s confidants advised him that he still had a chance to pull out the victory if he could just win the final round.  “One round, that’s all we need!”

Bruce came out firing, and it appeared Barragan’s tank was empty. If HBO’s punch stat calculator was present, it would have verified the difference in output.

With the verdict left in the hands of the judges, the first judge scored the bout 39-37 for Barragan. The other two judges scored the bout 38-38, which made the decision a majority draw.

In Bout #10, Jaime “Fabian” Ocegueda (3-0-0, 2 KOs) of East Los Angeles and Luis Hernandez (0-1) of San Bernardino, CA, two very tough hombres, did not disappoint the fans who love their fights all-action.

By round two, Ocegueda’s plan involved landing these five-punch combinations and then moving out of range of Hernandez’s counters. After another four-punch combination found its mark to end the frame, Hernandez walked back to his corner with a bloody nose.

Ocegueda may have gotten the victory, but Hernandez was the one who proved he has the granite chin because he took a staggering amount of punches, punches that would normally put most people on their back. At one point, Ocegueda landed two left hooks and a chin checking uppercut but still Hernandez kept coming.

In the end, all three judges had Ocegueda winning, 39-37 twice, while the third had it 40-36.

About MEZ Sports

MEZ Sports has been a leading Southern California fight promotion company since April 2008 having promoted 14 fight cards over the last 5 years.